View clinical trials related to Dysphagia.
Filter by:The purpose of this study is to determine whether functional electrical stimulation is effective in the treatment of dysphagia due to nasopharyngeal cancer post radiotherapy
The current standard of care for advanced HNC is concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CRT), which has led to increased survival rates, but with significant acute and long-term toxicities. Dysphagia, or difficulty with swallowing, is a common and expected side effect during and following CRT. Dysphagia occurs in up to 50% of patients and significantly impairs the quality of life (QOL) of patients during delivery of and recovery from CRT. Clinical trials evaluating promising and innovative adjunctive approaches that could increase the rate and magnitude of recovery from dysphagia in HNC patients are needed. Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medical technique that has been found to reduce symptoms and side effects associated with primary cancer therapy. This study evaluated the feasibility of conducting a randomized sham-controlled trial and collected preliminary data on safety and efficacy of acupuncture.
Ultrasound is widely applied in many fields of medicine but less commonly used in the evaluation of tongue movement and swallowing abnormality. Fuhrman RAW reported the usefulness of using ultrasound to evaluate poor tongue coordination [1]. Peng CL stated that ultrasound could provide excellent quantitative and qualitative bases of tongue movement during swallowing using cushion-scan technique [2]. Videofluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS) is widely accepted as the gold standard of evaluating swallowing abnormality because it is able to evaluate the whole swallowing procedure without interference of pharyngeal contraction and foreign body sensation when swallowing is examined by using a fiber-optic laryngoscope. One of the most important information that VFSS can provide is the detection of subclinical silent aspiration. The decision and management of many patients with swallowing abnormalities are usually based on the VFSS findings [3]. As shown in many reports, our experiences showed that VFSS provided extremely important information of understanding the pathophysiologic change of dysphagia due to variable etiologies, such as in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer suffering from radiation therapy [4] and in patients with stroke [5]. Using the findings of VFSS, physicians and medical staffs can make important decision whether oral feeding should be given, which safety swallowing maneuver works and what is the appropriate choices of food consistency safe to dysphagic patients. The difficulties of VFSS are usually in the transportation of paraplegic and hemiplegic patients from ward to the examining chair. The frequency and examination duration of VFSS is usually limited for avoiding unnecessary radiation exposure. Hence, ultrasound provides a role in evaluating oral condition with the benefits of convenience of transportation and availability as well as no radiation exposure. Therefore, validation of the value of ultrasound for the oral swallowing with correlation of VFSS is important to test the clinical feasibility. Peng CL et al reported their experiences of using real-time ultrasound in the evaluation of intrinsic tongue movement [2, 6, 7]. The findings of submental ultrasound are quite different from the findings of VFSS which provides the surface information of the tongue in the swallowing of radiopaque barium sulfate bolus. Combined real-time B mode and M mode ultrasound, it was reported the potential of digital data analysis of oral phase swallowing. Kuhl V et al reported the usefulness of ultrasound in the evaluation of laryngeal elevation in patients with dysphagia [8]. They found significant decrease of laryngeal elevation in patients diagnosed as neurogenic dysphasia [8]. Casas et al successfully combined ultrasound examination and plethysmography to evaluate the swallowing condition of children with cerebral palsy [9]. The results of these studies explained the potential of ultrasound in oral swallowing and dynamic laryngeal movement. Our experiences of VFSS showed the usefulness VFSS in diagnosing and management of patients with swallowing problem or dysphagia [4, 5, 10, 11]. To our knowledge, there was little experience of comparing between ultrasound and VFSS in patients with swallowing problem. Therefore, we conducted this study to correlate submental ultrasound and VFSS findings and tried to find out the clinical feasibility and usefulness. Purposes: This study was to evaluate the usefulness of submental ultrasound (SM US) in oral phase swallowing in correlation with videofluoroscopic study (VFSS). 1. To compare normal volunteers and patients with swallowing abnormality with submental ultrasound. 2. To evaluate and compare patients with swallowing problem using submental ultrasound and VFSS. Type of study: Retrospective. Time of study: Jan 2004 - July 2006.
The investigators objective is to describe functional endoscopic evaluation of swallowing findings in children with cerebral palsy.
The purpose of the investigation is to learn whether intense swallowing exercise or intense swallowing exercise coupled with electrical stimulation (E-Stim) helps patients who had head/neck cancer and currently have dysphagia swallow better.
The primary goal of the proposed study is to improve the long-term swallowing capabilities of subjects undergoing radical or modified radical neck surgeries followed by chemoradiation therapy (CRT), by more selective stimulation of the swallowing muscles using implanted microstimulators called BIONs.
People who do not have adequate amounts of vitamin D develop weakness of leg and arm muscles. This study will determine if vitamin D supplementation benefits muscle functions important for swallowing, bladder and bowel function.
The primary goal of the investigation is to determine the effects of the Mendelsohn maneuver on the physiology of the swallow in individuals who have suffered a stroke and exhibit signs of pharyngeal dysphagia.
To correlate findings between two commonly-used types of swallowing studies: videofluoroscopy and flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES).
To validate the pharyngeal constriction ration, a surrogate measure of pharyngeal strength on fluoroscopy by comparing it with simultaneous pharyngeal manometry.